My oldest choose No Cream Puffs by Karen Day for the first book club of the year. They are in 5th grade now and have been meeting for book club since 2nd grade. My daughter played soccer with the author’s daughter this past spring, but she had no idea that the mother is an author, though we (the moms) have all heard of Karen Day and knew of her books here in Newton, MA. What I didn’t know was that KAREN was a really great baseball player and the book is loosely based on her own childhood story! (see interview below)
Grammer app for Using Comma
This is a nice iPhone/iPad/iPod app from Pearson that focuses on correct punctuation using the ever so confusing comma. It’s a quick and easy way to study just this one topic for standardized test.
How to Raise Boys Who Read
Have you ever wanted anything more than the forbidden fruit? Yeah, me neither, so let’s not create an artificial lack thinking we’ll change kids’ ideas about games. This is the part of the argument where I think Mr. Spence gets off track.
How to Raise Boys Who Read from a dad of 6 boys!
Thank you to my work Dad Friend, who also has a blog called adverlicio.us, an online ad archive, for this great article from the Wall Street Journal on How to Raise Boys Who Read by Thomas Spence with a note that says “Hint: Not with Gross-Out Books and Video Game Bribes.” Spence is apparently disgusted by the pandering of publishers to reluctant boy readers with Gross-Out books and proposes a simple solution that worked for his 6 (that’s right, folks, SIX!!!!) boys: TURN OFF THE SCREENS! FILL THE HOUSE WITH GOOD BOOKS.
Neil Gaiman’s Newbery Award Acceptance Speech
I thought Neil Gaiman gave such a lovely, funny and inspiring speech. Thank you to Beth Schulman for the post. Neil Gaiman is going to be the Boston Public Library Children’s Book Fundraiser tomorrow, Sunday, Sept 26, 2010. It’s a tea party starting at 2:00. It might be too late to jump in, but you never know. You get to meet four Newbery authors and have them sign your books. I’d love to meet Neil Gaiman after reading his speech!
Website That Teaches Kids Spanish: Muy Fabuloso!
Kulcutural Kids has a Foreign Langauge and Friends website to teach children vocabulary through a themed web games for Spanish but other languages coming soon. They offered me a code to check it out and I have to say that it took me a long time to get around to it, but when I finally took a look I was really impressed.
Massachusetts Children’s Book Award 2011 (ages 7-16)
Our school librarian at our elementary school always has a shelf dedicated to these books and there is a challenge to the the 5th Graders to read the entire list. The reviews are from the Acton Memorial Library.